


In the Attic

by KendylGirl



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Love, M/M, POV Oliver (Call Me By Your Name)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 16:43:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21323392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KendylGirl/pseuds/KendylGirl
Summary: They kiss, as lovers committing themselves.
Relationships: Oliver & Elio Perlman, Oliver/Elio Perlman
Comments: 33
Kudos: 204





	In the Attic

**Author's Note:**

> Someone on Discord posted a GIF of the attic scene (was that you, blueishdesire??), and for reasons I cannot explain, I was drawn to it anew. I watched it many dozens of times, took screen shots, and examined them in minute detail. This scene is amazing, so I decided to make it a turning point of a different sort.
> 
> And my thanks to Willowbrooke for her reliable and thorough eye!

I knew I’d find him here.

I’d labored over my typewriter for hours, sweat pooling in the small of my back, forcing myself to work because I could feel the end of summer coming, feel it pressing against my chest like a fist. I had to get these revisions done. It’s why I’d come here in the first place.

It isn’t why I stayed.

The chair had creaked when I flopped backwards, a mechanical match to my joints after they’d folded me mercilessly against the professor’s desk, determined to keep my eyes on the swinging arms of the metal letters thudding with regularity against the thick paper, punching my thoughts out, lyrical notions of the fluid stream of life, catalogued in robotic fashion.

I had wiped my eyes, run my fingers through my hair. I had been empty, hungry, but it wasn’t food I needed. I could smell him everywhere, on my arms and my fingers, in the threads of my shirt. I wanted him constantly, and every day passed like a sigh until he was mine, until he would slide in the door of my room—_ his _ room—and let it click shut behind him, a smile flicking at the corners of his mouth as his tongue flicked at the corner of mine. I lived for the nights he would stride into the bedroom, shove me down without preamble, and climb on top of me, hold my wrists in jagged nails while he hissed into my ear that I was his.

And it’s true. I am.

He lies on the mattress, muscles of his face twitching while dust floats in the sunlight that slices through the boards over the windows, hands clamped to the waistband of his bulging shorts. Maybe he’s dreaming of me. I hope it’s me. I want to make sure his mind is filled with us, no room for young French girls or their curvaceous sisters. I want him, I want all of him. No one else gets to see him blissed out and gone, to watch his face twist and slacken. No one else gets to submit when his eyes lose their color and the devil takes him, when he grabs at my throat and thrusts in earnest, his moans crackling in the crisp midnight air.

That’s mine. That’s only for me.

No one else gets his name.

And no one else will ever have mine.

I pull my shirt off and lower my hip onto the edge of the mattress and lick at his chest, the sweet cover of sweat settled into his breastbone. Like nectar.

Follow it down, lap it up, rib and navel, and his restless head rises to follow me, the skin of his stomach puckering slightly as he eases up on unsteady elbows with a sleepy grunt.

I could devour him.

The band of his shorts depresses easily under my fingers, and I close my mouth around him, curve my nose through the velvet of his groin and inhale sharply, pull my lips up and suck on him like a straw. Again and again, harder each time. I could die here, his scent in my nose, his cock in my throat. I’d go peacefully with a life well-lived.

But something’s different. The taste. I know it too well, love it too much.

“What did you do?”

I lick my lips, chase the ghost of him there.

“Nothing.”

“No?”

He winces, his lie betrayed immediately by eyes that cannot lie to me, a gaze dragged to the hollowed peach on the shelf next to him, oozing. I chuckle, a little too breathy, but I’m trying to keep my tone light and not let him see the hot rush of my lust and anger. Seriously? A goddamn _ peach_? That’s what he turned to? I was right below him, dying for his touch, and he’s up here listening to tunes and grinding out to fruit?

“Oh, I see…you’ve moved on to the plant kingdom already…” He wipes hard at his eyes with one hand, then both, but the action barely registers with me. Hell, I’m on a roll now. I hold the offending item up in my fingertips, whisk it around as I gesture leisurely with my arms. “What’s next, minerals? I suppose you’ve already given up on animals—you know, that’s _ me_.”

Of course you know that. You know every goddamn thing there is to know, don’t you? Including how to stab me right through the heart. Thanks a lot. I’m not even gone yet, and you’ve already given up on me, Elio? It was that easy for you? That quick? Toss me out for whatever gives you pleasure just to get you off so you can move on, forget I ever existed?

And what the fuck—I’m jealous. I’m actually _ jealous_. Of a fucking peach.

He shakes his head, blows out a hot breath. “I’m sick aren’t I?” he mumbles, fingering his necklace, the one he wears because of me, the one that jingles against mine when we’re face to face, when I hold him beneath me and beg him to let me get as far inside of him as I can go.

“I wish everyone were as sick as you.” 

Dimly I have to notice his puffy eyes, the quiet sadness in his tone, but they don’t impress me because I am driven—I have to reclaim what’s mine. I want it, every drop. All of him, inside me. I start to peel back the skin of the peach, to probe my finger around in the viscous nectar that sludges out of the core, to paint my skin in it.

Elio goes still. “Please don’t do that.”

“You wanna see something sick?”

His elbows are pinned to his ribcage and his hands flop helplessly. “Please don’t do that. _ Please don’t do this, _” he grinds out, his voice like a claw digging into the edge of a cliff.

My gaze at him is cool, detached. “You wanna see something sick?” I’m mocking him, a subtle cruelty I suddenly feel entitled to. _ See, I can repeat myself, too, if you want, Elio_. But I can be lighter with it, nonchalant. His commands to me miss their mark, become pale requests in the limestone filter of my brain. But I’m not the one who needs to beg. My question is purely rhetorical. I don’t need an answer. I don’t need his consent. I don’t need _ anything. _I am the one in control here. This game is all mine.

Elio’s eyes are pinched and red, and I stare directly into them as I pluck my sticky finger out of the peach’s pit and raise it to my lips which are twisted and rigid with ice.

His stomach clenches as he shifts his weight to one elbow and darts out his right hand to clamp onto my wrist with sudden strength to drag my hand away from my mouth. “Hey, please don’t _ do _ this!”

But he’s no match for me. I loom above him, and he’s prostrate on this old mattress with tears crusted in his eyes and juice staining his shorts, and I will not lose. I crush him, wrench his forearm away and press it down by his hip, and he wriggles painfully, fights to free himself from my grasp, so I turn away from him, hold my prize where it is mine alone.

He sags back, relents, waits to see what I will do, and the waves of his mortification burn my skin as they rise in buffers of convection to the ceiling, like the shimmers of cellophane that are born when salt water meets a fresh reserve in an underground cave no one ever knew existed. The boundary between worlds.

I raise the gutted peach to my mouth.

I want it, want to swallow it down, digest both him and his lover, feed off of him and pretend I’ve nourished myself, just like I’ve pretended not to want to lick the drop of peach juice that’s congealed at the bend of his neck. Maybe that will let me through the veil where I could exist unbound, free in whatever life or death he’d select for me. I want to know every part of him with every part of me, let my cells glow with the energy they take from him for whatever senses I have left.

I inhale deeply, and the glut of his scent numbs me. It’s been all over this room from the moment I walked in, and it has gnawed at me in the periphery of my mind, letting my hunger grow. Watery mouth, trembling fingers. I’m an addict in need of a hit.

He swipes at me again, catches my weakness, and latches onto my wrist, nearly making my prize slip out of my hand and roll bruised across the warped stones that dig into my feet. “Why are you doing this to me?” His pain drowns in a flash of panic, and I twist my shoulders away, let him cling uselessly to my empty arm so I can cup the peach in my palm, save what I covet while he strains against me. “Why are you doing this?”

_ I’m not doing any of this, Elio_. But I sure as hell can undo it.

With a swoop of my torso, I shove him back, spread my hand wide and push him down, see my fingertips sink into him, watch as his soft skin draws the blood from my hands and turns red as my knuckles slowly whiten. He claws at my hand with both of his, and I watch his swollen lips draw back from his teeth, ignore the agonized betrayal that darkens the centers of his eyes.

There’s no air in here, but I’m cold, I’m so cold. Why am I _ so cold_?

“You’re fucking hurting me.”

And his voice has wonder in it. It’s surprise, genuine surprise, like the kid who knows everything, who can transcribe a symphony through the uncertain fuzz of his Walkman headphones, never suspected for a moment what could happen when he opened himself to me, didn’t bother to recognize that eventually, he’d need an exit plan, a way to survive it when the summer finally ends.

“Then don’t fight.”

Give up, Elio. Give up and let it happen. When are you going to learn to just give up?

And he doesn’t feel his strength, but I do. I am keenly aware of it, the taut muscles wrapped around bone, drawn into sharp relief as he pushes into my hand so hard it is as if he seeks to stop his own heart with the force of it. He is unpracticed, but he could easily overcome me if he wanted to because Elio is like no man I’ve ever known. His strength increases as he falls. It grows daily around the heat of his encompassing desire to be present for his whole life, the passion of his art, of his need for expression and disclosure. His passion for me. He has moved toward me every day I’ve been here, and even when I had tried to hide, even when I had run out to the woods every night to cower from the sounds of breathing and sighing which had filtered through the door between us, to gaze at the heavens and pray for the strength to return to the villa without marching into his room, throwing him over my shoulder, and carrying him to my bed, but he still succeeded in backing me into a corner until I could do nothing more than submit to the longing that we share.

He did that. _ He _ made it real, made us find our footing, no matter how hard nor how long I’d resisted. And he’s still doing it, still trying to reach me while I deny him.

His legs flail, and his hold on my arm drops off before he slips under my defenses and sags forward, drapes himself across my lap and throws his arms around my waist, soft hair driving into my gut. I feel his anguished cry before I hear it, hot breath forced into the fabric of my shorts as his grip intensifies on my spine from the other side to help him ride out the pain of the escaping sob.

Wait.

What’s happening?

For a moment, I can’t move. My hands hover over him, and I stare down at the body clinging to me like I’ve never seen it before.

I realize suddenly that this could be it. I could end it here. I could snap the line and let him go, leave him to his tears and let them dissolve his thoughts of me permanently, to wash away all of what we nearly were. That would be clean and easy, and “clean and easy" is my mantra. It’s how I have lived my entire life. Simplicity, reinforced to a degree that would make Thoreau blush.

And then I want to vomit. Maybe this _ is _ it. Maybe I’ve pushed him too far, drilled away at a vulnerability until I tore through to the other side, and everything we have had is broken and bleeding out, right in front of my eyes. I’ve betrayed it. I’ve betrayed him. And Elio hates me. And Elio is gone.

No.

_ No_.

This isn’t happening.

_ This cannot happen. _

I toss the peach carelessly onto the shelf and let both of my hands skate over his back. He loosens his grip, starts to pull away to sit up, so I use the opportunity to slide closer, to cradle him in my arms. He hides from me, keeps his hand over his eyes as he chokes down another shuddering cry, then groans and wipes at his face to try to stop more from following. I cradle his hip, massage the back of his neck and caress his hair with my cheek.

I’ve got you, Elio.

His covered forehead rests a moment on my chest, my shoulder, and I press the line of my body against him to hold him up. Or maybe it’s the opposite, and he’s really holding _ me _ up.

You’re all I’ve got, Elio.

He drops his arms to the mattress and sits up a bit. His eyes roll away as he grits his teeth, a frustrated growl deep in his throat. “Sorry.”

He’s _ sorry_?

_ He’s _ sorry?

My hands frame his face, my palms warm against his neck. My fingers work through his hair, soothing his skull as my thumbs caress his cheekbones. I think of the moment we met, leaning across the space of his father’s study to greet him, and I’d nearly missed his hand because that was the moment I saw his face, saw the mischievous green agate amid a field of freckles, held aloft by the perfect angle of these bones of polished stone, the infinite variety of their static ripples and layers of unshed sentiment, and in the moment when I reached for him, I wanted to touch _ them_, to feel the cool smoothness of a breathing work of art, to know what perfection felt like, just once.

That was the same moment I lost my name to him.

If I’m being honest, it was the moment I lost it all, but it never felt like I’d given up a single thing. If I could orbit his sun, I was warm. If I could see his smile, I felt joy. If I could taste him, consume everything that poured out of him, I would never go hungry. That disused peach is nothing to me, but it had part of what I needed, so I had to have it, too. I’ve never needed anything more than this. When it comes to Elio, I need it all.

“It’s okay,” I whisper.

He turns his head, turns his face into my palm and kisses it.

And I just stare, stare at the spot where his lips dent my skin and know that I will see the scar of it until I am dust, drag my fingers over it to relive the singular moment in my life when I knew—without a doubt, I _ knew_.

Abruptly, he rolls his neck and drags my nose through his hair, and I fear he is trying to brush me off, give himself some space. I focus hard to figure out how I’m supposed to move away. I can’t remember how to go a direction that Elio is not.

I don’t expect him to surge up and kiss me again. My fingers tighten reflexively in his hair, and when he pulls away, I guide him back to me. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” the thumb I have anchored under his jaw wobbling as he hooks his tongue behind my teeth and deepens the kiss, throws his hands up to scrub through my hair before they sink down, his long fingers framing my face as I worship his eyelids, each in turn, drinking away the tears that rim them, press a kiss next to the soft of his ear where the precious stone meets the sea.

His head moves to my shoulder, and he clutches my arm. As I pet the silk of his back, I know what I want to do.

“I don’t want you to go.”

I’m committed. I’ve eaten the seed willingly because it’s the only food my system craved, and it took me until now to find it. I cannot leave his kingdom. Where he reigns is my home.

My mind flies through the research I’d done privately over the last couple of weeks: the book tour extension in Rome, the Writer in Residence that the university offers there, the teach-abroad possibilities of various countries in Europe, the apartment in New York where we could land. But I wanted to be sure before I uttered a word.

I had to know.

I kiss the back of his neck slowly, sweeping down to the bend of his shoulder on swirls of my tongue. “Oliver,” I breathe into his skin, and I feel him clutch me harder, feel the pulse under my lips flutter. I smile. “My Oliver…” I bite gently on the knob of his shoulder.

He leans back and looks at me again, an actual smile shimmering at the edges of his mouth. Can he read me that well? Does he already see it? “Elio?” he whispers, laying his finger into the cleft of my chin.

And I have to kiss him again, have to lick into him one more time and taste the change, the sweetness of curiosity washing away the despair, like it had never been there at all.

I run my nose up the side of his neck, brush his hair back from his forehead. “How about we get a shower, maybe take a walk. Should be some great stargazing tonight.” I bend and suck on his Adam’s apple, feel his quiet groan just beneath the surface. “Clouds have disappeared.”

“I’d like that.” He dips his head down, watches his own finger trace through the hair on my thigh. “Are you…is everything all right?” His cheek pinks up.

He thinks I’m upset with him, like somehow he’s done something wrong.

_ You’ve brought me to my knees, that’s all. _

But I want to be on my knees in front of him. He can tie my hands if he wants. I’ll let him. I’ll beg him.

I draw my hand under his chin and raise his head, and I have to bite my lip to keep from giggling. It’s all so clear now, and I feel weightless, bubbles of air where the stones of my fears had lived. I wasted so many days wondering, so many days wandering, and here was the destination all along. “I’m fine. Better than fine. _ Much _ better than fine. There’s something I need to talk to you about, though.” 

His eyebrows tick together, and I see a dart of fear shoot through him. “What does—“

I lay three fingers on his mouth to silence him. “Trust me. Please.” I smile, replace my fingers with my lips, lick over his in a hard vertical stripe, and he relaxes, chuckles against my mouth.

I stand and brush the dust off, extend my arm out to him. “You ready?”

He watches me for a moment with an odd expression, and in a rush, I realize that it is the same way he looked at me before marching me out of the backyard and into his piano to dance around me with Bach variations until I could scarcely think. It is the look of boldness he gets when he’s made choices of his own.

He takes my hand firmly. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> If I had a clue how to do it, I would post the screenshots I made of this scene; they are art. I never thought I could watch this film yet again and still see something new, but Tim and Armie as they embody these characters is a miracle that will forever show me dimensions I had not seen before.
> 
> Am I the only one who thought that their introduction by Samuel at the beginning of the film was intentional? "Elio, Oliver; Oliver, Elio." Which man was which seemed obscured by that brevity.
> 
> I've missed Elio and Oliver. I hope you've enjoyed this, and maybe you will want to come back for some more of my version of them soon... 😊


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